RESDA RESEARCHERS – ARN KEELING AND JOHN SANDLOSMemorial University of Newfoundland
with Anne Dance – Memorial University, University of Ottawa

“Remediation, the goal, the processes by which it is undertaken, and who gets involved in it is highly-contested, as we see in the case of Giant [Mine] and, as we’re increasingly discovering, at many other sites.” -Arn …

John and Arn are researching the toxic legacies of abandoned mine sites.

“I think we all know that mining can be a divisive issue within communities, but something that really emerged for me in conversations was duality within the individual. People would speak one minute about being very concerned about contamination in wildlife and fish and how that negatively affected their wellbeing, but in their next breath, express desire for employment and for future mining in the area because that benefitted their health and wellbeing… So [there’s] the challenge of not just developing a consensus in the community and a number of individuals, but within individuals themselves.” …

Emily is looking at how mechanisms for Free, Prior, and Informed Consent mechanisms compare to First Nations’ expectations.

“I have seen a lot of people who did cope very well with camp life over the last few years. Some did not. However, those who adapted to camp life were people who were pretty serious about their life and work.” -Gerti …

Gertrude and Susanna looked at how mine workers felt about mobile/commuting and rotational mine work

“What people told me is that they had such a bad experience as a community with Asbestos Hill Mine that they wanted to make sure that this never happened again. They made sure to talk to the mining company and to have a long-term plan and more positive effects. It really changed mining policies in Nunavik and, actually, the rest of Canada because now it’s just expected that we do an Impact Benefit Agreement.” …

Jeanette’s work follows the history and impact of Asbestos Hill, Nunavik’s first mine.

“We have been asking our First Nations partners to fit their concepts of health and wellbeing into normative frameworks, and then at the end of the day, we hear after the water board hearing or the decision has been signed, that ‘no you didn’t hear us’.” …

Jen is studying how the legacy of colonialism affects the definition of Indigenous wellbeing used in impact assessments and impact and benefit agreements.

“There is a separation between the reported hardships in northern communities and residents’ opinions about the living conditions in their communities. One of the ways to better understand the separation between hardships and residents’ opinions is to look into the construct of community wellbeing [from] its history and multidimensional perspectives.”…

Kent’s research examined models of measuring community wellbeing in Alaska and the Yukon.

“Simply appointing more women to co-management boards is not necessarily going to address any issues related to gender that have been identified … It is important to ensure that opportunities for filling board member positions are structured to be more inclusive to women, so that they both want and are able to participate.”....

“Previous research about gender in resource development often focused on the effects of resource development on women and families. This research tended to cast women as victims of resource development by drawing attention to negative social outcomes. One result of this type of research has been a misrepresentation of Indigenous women and a narrowing of what women actually think is important in the north is narrowed.”

Suzanne’s team explored how women experience and view the effects of resource development on their communities.

CHERCHEUR RESDA RESEARCHER – THIERRY RODONUniversité Laval (Northern Sustainable Development Chair, Director of the Interuniversity Centre for Aboriginal Studies and Research (CIÉRA))
in collaboration with Makivik Corporation and other community partners.

“Institutional capacity will differ in terms of strategy. There’s no inherently bad strategy but some better ones: there’s a vision and a plan of what to do with that mine and what to do when that mine closes. That’s something you need to talk about, you know, mines are never sustainable.”

Thierry analyzed the different ways in which Indigenous communities have used royalties and profit shares from resource development.